Beta decay of potassium-54 reveals the role of two-body currents in neutron-rich nuclei

Abstract

The beta decay of neutron-rich nuclei probes the microscopic nature of weak interactions in the nuclear medium under extreme conditions. Such weak decays drive the synthesis of heavy elements in astrophysical environments, but remain poorly understood. Far from stability, experimental data are scarce, placing strong demands on ab initio nuclear theory. Two-body weak currents have been proposed as the dominant mechanism responsible for the universal quenching of theoretically predicted Gamow-Teller decay strength. However, direct experimental validation in neutron-rich nuclei has been lacking. Here we measure the beta decay of 54K, a nucleus at the experimental frontier of radioactive ion-beam facilities. In this work, the doubly magic nature of the daughter nucleus 54Ca results in a remarkably simple decay pattern, dominated by a single transition to a neutron-unbound state at 6.2 MeV with a comparative partial half-life logft=4.4(1) or Gamow-Teller decay strength B(GT)=0.26 (+0.08) (-0.04). Our measurement is reproduced by new state-of-the-art calculations of the decay, providing direct evidence for the essential role of two-body currents in nuclear beta decay for systems with a significant neutron excess. We establish a key benchmark for theoretical predictions of weak processes in exotic nuclei.